Some Useful Sales Books

Recently I had the opportunity to read (and browse thro’ in some of them) some good sales-related books. Many of these are already famous, but the key thing is that all these books came from the same source and so had a purpose behind ensuring that I go through these books !

I thought I should share the names of these books to interested readers of my blog, as these might be helpful to understand the complexity of B2B Sales and have fruitful sales negotiations. The first two books are long time classics in the area of selling and may not be new to most readers. The others are relatively new.

Here’s the list:

1. THE NEW STRATEGIC SELLING – Robert B Miller and Stephen E Heiman with Tad Tuleja
2. THE NEW CONCEPTUAL SELLING – Robert B Miller and Stephen E Heiman with Tad Tuleja
3. THE NEW SUCCESSFUL LARGE ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT – Robert B Miller and Stephen E Heiman with Tad Tuleja
4. THE NEGOTIATION FIELDBOOK – Grande Lum
5. THE 5 PATHS TO PERSUASION – THE ART OF SELLING YOUR MESSAGE – Robert B Miller and Gary A Williams with Alden M Hayashi
6. SELLING MACHINE – HOW TO FOCUS EVERY MEMBER OF YOUR COMPANY ON THE VITAL BUSINESS OF SELLING – Diane Sanchez and Stephen E Heiman and Tad Tuleja
7. SUCCESSFUL GLOBAL ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT – KEY STRATEGIES AND TOOLS FOR MANAGING GLOBAL CUSTOMERS – Kevin Wilson and Nick Speare with Samuel J Reese
8. THE SEVEN KEYS TO MANAGING STRATEGIC ACCOUNTS – Sallie Sherman, Joseph Sperry and Samuel Reese

All of the above are great books by the way and worth investing to gain a deep understand and expertise on higher level sales management in the enterprise space.

I would recommend all of them, but in case of time paucity, at least try the first two books – they are incidentally classics in their own right.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
27th January 2013
Mumbai

Synchronized Notes

I found a cute little software which can keep my notes and thoughts synchronized across my laptop (Windows XP), mobile phone (Android) and tablet device (iOS). There are several options to choose from, but after some investigation I settled on using Evernote.

My usual practice earlier has been to jot down random thoughts or points in a piece of paper, sometimes on a 3M note, and then keep collating these whenever I get time, so that I would have a digital copy in a Word file, or insert a specific item in my calendar when an action becomes due, etc., I am sure there were better ways, but people tend to go with whatever practice worked for them in the easiest manner in the past, so it was OK for me.

However, with the proliferation of devices and the availability of the same varying according to occasion, it has become absolutely imperative to create and synchronize notes for action across devices. We don’t wish to miss out on important activities, whether these be in the business or personal spheres. Oftentimes, we do not miss out on business actions, as these are well documented and captured in emails and calendars. We get reminders electronically as well as physically from other colleagues. But the same may not apply to personal space.

I found that the Evernote application works very well and across platforms beautifully. The other day, I had to attend the Parent-Teacher Meeting at my son’s school, and both my wife and myself forgot to take the usual notepad or even a pen. The other parents were all using such traditional means to capture what the teacher was saying, and we were looking at each other. Then I quickly opened the Evernote application on my Android phone and started keying in the main points being stated by the teacher into the application by creating a specific note on that particular meeting. And, once the meeting was finished, I pressed the “sync” button, and voila, my laptop and iPAD at home got the updated version of my electronic notebook.

Evernote has other useful features such as webclipping, but I am not going to expand on its specific features here in this post. I wanted to share a good tool which is very useful when it comes to personal data capture and synchronized management of the data, making it available where and when needed, and avoiding data frustrations.

These days, I capture all the ideas and actions in Evernote almost immediately. It seems a perfect tool for action-oriented personal data management.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
30th June 2012
Mumbai

Dead Horse Theory

Courtesy: From a person personally known to me

“When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount and get a different horse.”

However, in government, education and corporate life, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

1. Buying a stronger whip.

2. Changing riders.

3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.

4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses.

5. Lowering the standards so that the dead horse can be included.

6. Reclassifying the dead horse as ‘living impaired’.

7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.

8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.

9. Providing additional funding and / or training to increase dead horse’s performance.

10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.

11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overheads and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.

12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.

And, of course,

13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position!

Alarmingly True, right ?

Courtesy: From a person personally known to me

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
29th April 2012
Mumbai

Formula 1 Grand Prix

India recently concluded the Formula 1 Grand Prix successfully at Noida near Delhi. It was a grand success and went without a hitch. The racing circuit was endorsed by the key global racers as one of the best in the world.

While there are debates raging between the opposing camps – one which says it is a gross misuse of funds with no clear return on investment, and the other which says that India has truly arrived in the world’s premier sporting event – it is very evident from the success that private entrepreneurship is far better than government execution.

That statement is mostly true around the world. One reason which comes up clearly on the surface is that any government is not really geared towards running a business, or a sporting event for that matter. Governments around the world have mostly withdrawn from owning direct responsibility of running a business enterprise, though many might still have a controlling interest in several large enterprises. How can we expect to run a manufacturing industry, or a business using the services of government bureaucrats. I believe even public sector enterprises in India (majority-owned by Government of India through one of its ministries) should have at least a 50% representation by independent directors on their boards of directors. In some cases, it is not even 20%. We can all see the mess in Air India (now called “Indian”) – the flagship airlines of India owned by the government. Examples abound. Even in the sports arena, the world saw the Common Wealth Games (CWG) scandals in India last year: though the event itself happened without much of a problem, the corruption scandals tarnished the image of the Indian Government and the CWG institution.

In the case of Formula 1, the entire execution was by a private sector company, which obtained the license to run the Grand Prix from the Formula 1 Organizers, and the much-needed land from the Uttar Pradesh State Government (Noida is part of the state). There are several arguments in the Indian media that the company will not be able to recover the investment even after many years, and given the poor mindset on maintenance, the circuit would be wasted away in due course of time. What is the point in building such an expensive circuit, when it is going to be used just for a few days in a year ? Etc., etc.,

But the key point, Indians need to be proud, and there are very few things today that they can be proud of. When such a small city state as Singapore can host the Night Grand Prix so successfully for the past few years in the middle of its dense city, can India, a country of such vast proportions stand up and execute an ambitious project without corruption and with such perfection ? Yes, it can do so, if the executors are left to use their business sense and capabilities without unnecessary bureaucratic intervention.

Well, we can also argue till the cows come home, whether it was worthwhile to spend so much on an “elite” sport which very few people in the country understand or want to be involved in. Good question. Yes, most of even middle class must have come to know about the fact that a Grand Prix Formula 1 race is being held in India, only a few days before the event actually took place. One can also say that only the rich and famous, and the Bollywood celebrities were involved, and they were the only faces focused upon in the extensive media coverage last weekend. Yes, agreed on all the above counts. But all these observations do not detract from the excellent execution of a world-class project by private enterprise in India, and the Government of India would do well to learn from this experience and institute more public-private partnership events and enterprises to enhance the competitiveness of India on the global scene.

That would be a show-stopper, sorry, ground-breaking development in the long socialistic history of Independent India. It is not socialism, it is not capitalism, but it is “economic” partnership for ensuring the future of India.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
6th November 2011
Mumbai

Half-Baked MBA Schools

India is full of suspect business schools, which have sprouted like mushrooms all over the country.

I am not going to name any such school in this post, that is not the real point.

I will be careful in considering anyone coming from such schools with tall claims. I was shocked to read full-page advertisements and heavy television advertising promoting a business school, with an explicit claim that they are far better than the IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management) ! I thought comparative advertising without proof and basis are subject to advertising regulations – is the concerned advertising body watching and taking action to safeguard advertising ethics ?

Notwithstanding any “tall” claims to the contrary, it is absolutely clear where management education stands in the country. I am not referring to “research” which has become a subject of contention between a government minister and the top engineering and management institutes. Yes, research in academic institutions of repute in India is far below global standards, and that is why none of the top schools are in the top 20 institutions, even in Asia Pacific region.

However, it is not appropriate to contest the quality of management education at the top schools in India. The top schools, of course, include only the IIMs, the XLRI, and a few other well-established, long standing schools of academic (and not advertising-driven) reputation. None of the hundreds of other schools qualify to be even in the top 100 management schools in the country. In fact, they bring down the quality of the education.

The bigger challenge is the acceptance of such schools by private corporates due to non-availability of management graduates from the top schools (who have all flown away with multiple offers). They have to be more careful in assessing the credibility of such schools and the quality of their education. It may be better to go with graduates with non-business degrees from reputed schools and train them on management in-house.

I saw notification issued by AICTE (All India Council of Technical Education) which regulates management education as well specifying the names of schools which are not accredited by them. After that notification, I have only seen the decibel of advertisements by second-tier and third-tier schools going up. It would be better for potential students to check out the credentials and the approvals of schools before investing their parents’ hard-earned money.

Fake and half-baked MBAs taught at such schools by professors with suspect and / or no academic credentials will do no good for their future.

Cheers

Vijay Srinivasan
16th July 2011
Mumbai

Management Potential Quiz

Courtesy : Srinivas, my IIM-B Classmate

The following short quiz consists of 4 questions and tells whether you are qualified to be a “manager.” The questions are not that difficult.

How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe and close the door.

This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?
Wrong Answer : Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant and close the refrigerator.
Correct Answer : Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door.

This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your actions.

The Lion King is hosting an animal conference, all the animals attend except one. Which animal does not attend?
Correct Answer: The Elephant. The Elephant is in the refrigerator.

This tests your memory.

OK, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your abilities.

There is a river you must cross. But it is inhabited by crocodiles. How do you manage it?
Correct Answer: You swim across. All the Crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting!

This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

According to Andersen Consulting World wide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong. But many pre-schoolers got several correct answers. Andersen Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most management consultants have the brains of a four-year old.

Courtesy : Srinivas, my IIM-B Classmate

Cheers

Vijay Srinivasan
28th May 2011
Mumbai